"You won't wake her," said The Spider, and his voice sounded strange and far-away. "You better go in there."
A hot flash shot through Pete. Then came the cold sweat of a dread anticipation. He followed The Spider to where Boca lay on the couch, as though asleep. Pete turned swiftly, questioning with his eyes. The Spider set the lamp on the table and backed from the room. Breathing hard, Pete stepped forward and lifted a corner of the serape. Boca's pretty mouth smiled up at him—but her eyes were as dead pools in the night.
The full significance of that white face and those dull, unseeing eyes, swept through him like a flame. "Pardner!" he whispered, and flung himself on his knees beside her, his shadow falling across her head and shoulders. In the dim light she seemed to be breathing. Long he gazed at her, recalling her manner as she had raised her glass: "I drink to the young vaquero, with whom is my heart—and my life."
Dully Pete wondered why such things should happen; why he had not been killed instead of the girl, and which one of the three deputies had fired the shot that had killed her. But no one could ever know that—for the men had all fired at him when the lamp crashed down—yet he, closer to them than Boca, had broken through their blundering fusillade. He knew that Boca had taken a great risk—and that she must have known it also. And she had taken that risk that he might win free.
Too stunned and shaken to reason it out to any definite conclusion, Pete characteristically accepted the facts as they were as he thrust aside all thought of right or wrong and gave himself over to tearless mourning for that which Boca had been. That dead thing with dark, staring eyes and faintly smiling lips was not Boca. But where was she then?
Slowly the lamplight paled as dawn fought through the heavy shadows of the room. The door swung open noiselessly. The Spider glanced in and softly closed the door again.
The Spider, he of the shriveled heart and body, did the most human thing he had done for years. At the little table opposite the bar he sat with brandy and a glass and deliberately drank until he felt neither the ache of his old wounds nor the sting of this fresh thrust of fate. Then he knew that he was drunk, but that his keen, crooked mind would obey his will, unfeelingly, yet with no hesitation and no stumbling.
He rose and hobbled to the outer door. A vagrant breeze stirred the stale air in the room. Back in the patio his Mexican, Manuelo, lay snoring, wrapped in a tattered blanket. The Spider turned from the doorway and gazed at the sanded spot on the floor, leaning against the bar and drumming on its edge with his nervous fingers. "He'll see her in every night-fire when he's alone—and he'll talk to her. He will see her face among the girls in the halls—and he'll go cold and speak her name, and then some girl will laugh. He will eat out his heart thinking of her—and what she did for him. He's just a kid—but when he comes out of that room … he won't give a damn if he's bumped off or not. He'll play fast—and go through every time! God! I ought to know!"
The Spider turned and gazed across the morning desert. Far out rode a group of men. One of them led a riderless horse. The Spider's thin lips twisted in a smile.